Erak's Ransom Read Free Page B

has to have a Bores' Table,' his fiancee explained patiently. 'You take all the boring, annoying, bombastic people and sit them together. That way, they all bore each other and they don't bother the normal people you've asked.'

'Wouldn't it be simpler to just ask people you like?' Halt asked. 'Except Aunt Georgina, of course, there's. a good reason to ask her. But why ask other bores?'

'It's a family thing,' Lady Pauline said, adding a second and third name to the Bores' Table as she thought of them. 'You have to ask family and every family has its share of annoying bores. It's just part of organising a wedding.'

Halt dropped into a carved armchair, sitting slightly sideways with one leg hooked up over the arm. 'I thought weddings were supposed to be joyous occasions,' he muttered.

'They are. So long as you have a Bores' Table.' She smiled. She was about to add that he was lucky he didn't have family to invite, but she checked the statement in time. Halt hadn't seen any members of his family in over twenty years and she sensed that, deep down, the fact saddened him.

'The thing is,' she went on, veering away from the subject of families, 'now that the King is involved, the whole thing takes on a certain formality. There are people who must be invited — nobles, knights and their ladies, local dignitaries, village councillors and the like. They'd never forgive us if we robbed them of the chance to rub shoulders with royalty.'

'I really don't give a fig if they don't forgive me,' he said. 'Over the years, most of them have gone out of their way to avoid me.'

Lady Pauline leaned forward and touched his arm gently.

'Halt, it'll be the high point in their lives for some of them. After all, nothing much happens in the country. Would you really want to deprive them of a little bit of colour and glamour in their humdrum existence? I know I wouldn't.'

He sighed, realising she was right. He also realised that he might have been protesting a little too much. He was beginning to sense that the prospect of a big formal wedding might not be as objectionable to Pauline as it was to him. He couldn't understand the sentiment but if that was what she wanted, that was what he would give her.

'No. You're right, of course.'

'Now,' she continued, recognising that he had capitulated and grateful to him for the fact, 'have you chosen a best man?'

'Will, of course,' he said promptly.

'Not Crowley? He's your oldest friend.' She was aware, if he was not, that assigning official roles was a perilous matter.

Halt frowned. 'True. But Will is special. He's more like a son to me, after all.'

'Of course. But we'll have to find a role for Crowley.'

'He could give the bride away,' Halt suggested. Pauline considered, chewing on the end of her quill.

'I think Baron Arald assumes he'll be doing that. Hmmm. Tricky.' She thought for a few moments, then came to a decision. 'Crowley can give me away. Arald can perform the wedding. That's solved!' She made two more notes on her growing list.

In Araluen, marriage was a state ceremony, not a religious one. It was normal for the senior official present to perform the ritual. Halt cleared his throat, making a great effort to keep a straight face.

'Wouldn't protocol,' he said with mock concern, 'demand that the King do that?'

A frown creased Pauline's elegant features as she realised he was right. He was also altogether too pleased with himself. The innocent look in his eyes confirmed it.

'Damn!' she said. It didn't seem strong enough so she borrowed his oath, 'Gorlog's teeth!' She drummed her fingers on the desk top in annoyance.

'That's beard,' Halt said mildly.

'He's got both, so I hear,' she said. Then inspiration struck her. 'I know. We'll invite King Duncan to be Patron-Sponsor of the event. That should do the trick!'

'What does a Patron-Sponsor do?' Halt asked and she shrugged the question aside.

'Not sure. I only just invented the position. But Duncan won't know. His grasp of protocol is